The President clearly needs an extended vacation. He's not governing as it is, so he won't be missed. Michelle is better at the pr, and let Mr. Whipple worry about the money. He should go play golf for two weeks in Hilton Head with some buds, and Choom it up. He'll come back a new man, and his approval ratings will rise by 5.

The private sector is experiencing progressive margin compression. There are individuals and businesses treading water through the consumption of savings. There are many more who are following the government's lead and delaying accountability through the accumulation of debt. Both situations have a finite lifetime.

"President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is."--Peggy Noonan

The trouble with Obama is he is a socialist who refuses to believe he has 'run out of other people's money' as Maggie Thatcher could have told him would happen.He is still willing to destroy capitalism to grow govt. & refuses to believe that he will kill the golden goose.

MichealK: I fortunately managed to avoid His Highness when he was up here messing up the Bay Area commute traffic earlier.

Out of touch doesn't even BEGIN to describe Teh Won's arrogance. Upon reflection, he and the ridiculously elitist fool Anna Wintour are a perfect pair - neither has ever really accomplished anything on their own, both were helped to where they are through friends/family and neither has any understanding of real life. Oh, and they are both hypocrites of a very high order.

Does anyone remember... I think it was 2004... and unemployment was 5% or some such and how unemployment was such a big deal in the election? Heck, maybe it was when Bush I was trying to get re-elected. I'm getting old!

But anyhow, someone pointed out that, really, 5% unemployment is not bad at all, and I distinctly remember the person on television puffing up and saying, "Well! Tell that the person who doesn't have a job!"

OH! And good news... my second child finally found a job. It's doing political cold-calling and polls for the left, but hey... I'm not picky. It's not dealing drugs and it's not prostitution, which *in this economy* are about the only other choices for a 19 year old with no work experience.

If my 15 and 17 year olds are working at McDonalds by November Obama may yet win. But I'm thinking that McDonalds will still be hiring unemployed adults to work part-time minimum wage flipping burgers.

Does anyone remember... I think it was 2004... and unemployment was 5% or some such and how unemployment was such a big deal in the election? Heck, maybe it was when Bush I was trying to get re-elected. I'm getting old!

You're right, but wait until you get to be my age and the neurons start flaking off.

Scott, I think the term "history" can include things like Bush I's "read my lips no new taxes" or Carter's "malaise" speech or Reagan's "we begin bombing in five minutes" joke, etc. Of course it's not D-Day or Magna Carta history, but it's fair to say stuff like that goes down "in history" nonetheless.

I fear he might have stopped taking medication for his dissociative identity disorder and his Mittbot alter is periodically coming out again... doing god knows what mischief from within the CORE of the Obama campaign.

Now go tell them they don't know what the fuck they're talking about, monkey.

I corrected the poster who claimed the words "collective bargaining" were never mentioned in the campaign. Which they were, several times. Democrats should have run on it, but the WISDEMS are completely worthless, as is the Democratic Party, really.

The recall victory of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is sending shockwaves through Europe as right-wing and left-wing newspapers marvel at the Republican's ability to survive an election months after stripping the collective bargaining rights of public-sector unions. In European countries, where a much larger percentage of the labor force is unionized, politicians typically face insurmountable opposition from labor groups during wage and work-hour disputes. Today, some of the continent's biggest paper's are doing a double-take at headlines from over here.

They couldn't run on it, GM. The words "collective bargaining" means taxpayers' pocketbooks.

Most people agreed with the concessions, and were split on whether collective bargaining rights should exist. Democrats never made the argument that stripping CB was solely a power grab to enrich themselves.

Obama innately believes there is too much money and profit in the private sector. So, he naturally thinks the private sector is fine. What he said is how he really thinks and can be stated in his old soundbite of "at some point, you have made enough money".

Seeing Red, that's very interesting and very cool: so Wisconsin doesn't just have "national implications"; its example is considered a big deal internationally too. How astonishing, how mystifying that Wisconsin election must seem to Europeans.

--Most people agreed with the concessions, and were split on whether collective bargaining rights should exist. Democrats never made the argument that stripping CB was solely a power grab to enrich themselves---

you mean enriching the school districts so there could be more money spent on the children?

Or explaining why the state should be the middleman and collect the dues?

Those that didn't accept the concessions got new contracts and saddled the taxpayer with more debt.

Other options were flexible, it could have been 2 years for recertification, right?

Calling it "an extraordinary miscalculation" is a little over the top. It's too early in the campaign to have an impact.

The lovely thing about a statement by Obama in Obama's own voice is you can actually insert it into an attack ad that runs in, say, October, along with economic statistics and showing pictures of closed factories. What's the President going to say in response? "Oh, I said that back in June?"

I am impressed with the speed, accuracy, and articulateness of Romney's slam on Obama for Obama's latest demonstration of idiocy.

The Romney campaign is a pleasant surprise. A lot of people didn't think that he could or would go after Obama. He has, and has done a good job of it.

His responses seem the result of a well-oiled machine. Obama, or some other famous Dem, says something stupid, and the Romney campaign, and often Romney himself, have a good reply out that news cycle.

This is such a change from McCain's campaign, which seemed to be on defense from almost the start. Romney's campaign has seemingly put the Obama campaign on defense at least partially by their immediate and disciplined responses.

We learned in Desert Storm, and then later in our incursion into Iraq how important it was to get inside of the enemy's decision loop, and I do think that the Romney camp has done so, or is at least close to doing so.

The more this happens, the more Romney's election will seem inevitable. Romney's team is landing blows on Obama, and those expected attacks by the latter on Romney seem inevitably to be turned around and against Obama.

Who really looks more Presidential right now - President Obama? Or Gov. Romney? I would suggest the latter, esp. given his ability to maintain calm while landing blows.

People aren't getting more stupid, they're just being more frugal with the truth when it comes to talking to pollsters. (And who can blame them, when Obama is demagoguing big-ticket Rommey supporters? Today the President demonizes millionaire citizens; tomorrow the local Chief of Police is pulling you over every other day because of something you said in a "man on the street" interview on the local news.)

"Fine" means that their has been growth in employment and profit at levels that would be fine if we weren't in the Republican Depression.

Romney, Boner et al focused on that word to try to distract from the FACTUAL comments President Obama made about the danger of excessive austerity in a time of economic weakness. Romney, Cantor, Boner, etc. all know that to be true - they just want to get back in the White House at which time they'll go ahead and do exactly what Obama wants to do now.

Rick said...I am impressed with the speed, accuracy, and articulateness of Romney's slam on Obama for Obama's latest demonstration of idiocy

==========Right now, Team Romney is shaping up to be a far better, nimbler and shall we say effectively aggressive team than Team McCain.

And dare we say Team Axelrod, now stuck with the dregs of dreamy Hope&CHange in "soaring speeches" and deperately trying to use all the race, class, and gender cards they can pull.

All while a feckless President criss-crosses the country trying to blame Republicans for everything he has done that has gone wrong and seeking Hollywood celebs and other "beautiful people" glitteratti to cling to, that will tell him he is still their shining Black Messiah.

Meanwhile, Romney just stays calm and tells us things will get a lot better with a change of leadership.

"Romney, Boner et al focused on that word to try to distract from the FACTUAL comments President Obama made about the danger of excessive austerity in a time of economic weakness."

What are those dangers, Dave, and what counts as "excessive?"

What Obama wants to do is more of what was done with the "stimulous" which appears to have gone almost entirely to the non-productive public sector.

Please explain how funneling more money away from private sector industry and business in favor of government non-productive activities is neutral rather than actively harmful to economic growth? (Note, I'm not asking you to explain how it's helpful, just explain how it doesn't f*ck the economy in the ass.)

Bush told us to all go shopping. At least *that* lack of austerity kept the money circulating in the private sector.

Obama borrowed trillions from the Chinese and our children's future in order to save public employees from feeling the pain that other people had to learn to deal with, to save them having to enact "austerity" while the rest of us bite the bullet and figure what we can do with less.

We were told that the stimulous was going to stimulate the economy, to industry and to create jobs.

Liars. All of them. "Created" jobs became "saved" jobs in the public sector and nothing was built and no economy grew.

Oh wait!

Solyndra!

Er... nevermind.

But I'll be waiting for the explanation of the non-destructive nature of growth in public obligations during a recession. Honest, you don't even have to explain how it helps anything.

Dave. 4 million jobs created, if true, is piss poor. The "recovery" has been less than half the rate of a normal recovery, after each of the last ten or more downturns. No one with an ounce of economic understanding would claim the provate sector is doing "fine" and the president quickly swallowed every stupid word.

You may choose to call the current conditions a Republican Depression but you would then be ignoring the Democrat Summer of Recovery of 2010 which fizzled together with the gigantic stimulus spending that did not work.

The numbers do not lend themselves to pithy talking points. 4 million jobs added at the current rate will normalize the workforce in seventy years. Or so.

"Calling it 'an extraordinary miscalculation' is a little over the top. It's too early in the campaign to have an impact."

Romney really has no interest in the substance of Obama's comments, right or wrong, "extraordinary miscalculation" or minor word fart; he just wants to define it as a major gaffe so he can use it to his political advantage. Which is to be expected in politics, of course, but anyone who thinks Romney is any more connected to the American people and our reality than Obama, or gives any more of a real shit about us, is hopelessly mistaken about who these people are.

Robert Cook wrote: but anyone who thinks Romney is any more connected to the American people and our reality than Obama, or gives any more of a real shit about us, is hopelessly mistaken about who these people are.

Even if true, it's perception which counts. The recent events in Wisconsin "connect better" with Romney; Obama distanced himself and thus can reap no benefits of that referendum.

The Tea Party is alive and well and despite a tenuous initial rejection of Romney, the adherents of that faction are slowly opening to him--he'll always be better than the alternative.

--Romney, Boner et al focused on that word to try to distract from the FACTUAL comments President Obama made about the danger of excessive austerity in a time of economic weakness. Romney, Cantor, Boner, etc. all know that to be true - they just want to get back in the White House at which time they'll go ahead and do exactly what Obama wants to do now.---

My retirement is getting more austere by the day so some public worker can retire on $75k/yr w/great health insurance.

"The late economist Mancur Olson has argued that economies tend to grow more slowly as rent-seeking coalitions become pervasive and ubiquitous, since they divert resources from wealth-creating to wealth-consuming uses. This is one reason, he argues, why the United States grew so rapidly in the nineteenth century, and why West Germany and Japan grew so rapidly in the two or three decades after World War II. At such times, these economies were open to investment and entrepreneurship, and, as a consequence, they enjoyed historically high rates of growth. With the passage of time, all of these systems were gradually encumbered by coalitions seeking benefits through the state. Political paralysis and slow growth, Olson argues, are by-products of political systems captured by rent-seeking coalitions. These groups, operating collectively, can block any overall effort to cut spending or to address the problems of deficits and debt."

The budget has to be balanced by law. Every governor in the past 50 yrs balanced the budget w/o taking apart unions.

And, of course, the budget currently isn't even balanced. They intercepted some mortgage settlement funds meant for homeowners to bring it in balance, and refinanced some debt that will cost us 140 million in interest.

"Romney really has no interest in the substance of Obama's comments, right or wrong, "extraordinary miscalculation" or minor word fart; he just wants to define it as a major gaffe so he can use it to his political advantage. "

If West Town is being sarcastic or ironic in his pleasant comment to me, I must bow to his mastery of the understated dig, as I still do not detect what you seem to see as snark aimed at me. Rather, I see someone being cordial toward someone of differing political views than he.

I'm glad Robert Cook posts here, too. He is able to present the lefty perspective in an adult way and is not a hacktivist.

Re: Garage's objection to Walker's "union busting", it would be good if Garage would be more specific. Walker did nothing to non gov unions. The major reform that Walker made that drove gov union bosses out of their minds was to eliminate the mandatory confiscation of gov union members' wages to page union dues. What is wrong with that, why should the government(!) be forcing citizens to join a union and confiscating their wages to pay union dues?

Once gov workers had free choice about whether or not they wanted to join the gov unions, they left the unions in droves. Walker's reform was right morally and financially which is why Walker did so well in the recall election.

It is true that Walker has deeply wounded the union movement and that his leadership is likely to lead to similar reforms all over the country. Indiana did away with compulsory confiscation of gov workers' wages to pay union dues several years ago. Since then, Indiana gov unions have lost 90% of their members!

Garage: Bigotry is pointing out the real reason your dead eyed Jesus busted unions? You in denial? Want to believe it was for some actual honorable reason?

See? Crack should be all over this. For Disciple Garage, any disagreement must come from hatred and bad faith. Its beyond his comprehension that Walker "busted" unions soley to get spending under control. So it had to be for Evil reasons.